Summer is upon us, and if you run an online business or blog, you may be wondering if you can viably take a week or two off for a summer holiday like those workers in the ‘regular world’ get to do at this time of year. While you may be used to the fact that your site needs regular attention and that you don’t always get your weekends or evenings free in the same way as those who work a normal 9-5, there is no reason why, with a bit of planning, you can’t keep your blog or your online marketing strategy going strong while you take a much needed break. Here are some tips for making sure your summer holiday doesn’t have a negative impact on your business or site:
Schedule Content
Nearly every blogging platform or CMS offers the facility to schedule content to publish automatically, so if you want to make sure new posts go live while you are not working, you can simply prepare them and upload them in advance and tell WordPress or whatever you use to manage your content to publish it at a given time. This is the simplest way to make sure your site still gives readers fresh content when you are not managing it as carefully as you usually do.
If your normal content is fairly topical, you can write some more generic posts that aren’t dependent on current news, and can, if you want to, mention in the article that you have prepared it in advance because you are planning a nice vacation and want to make sure you still provide something great for your audience to read. This makes your readers feel appreciated, explains why there may be a slightly different feel to the pre-prepared articles than the usual more ‘newsy’ stuff, and also lets them feel like they know you better by giving them an insight into your life. It isn’t appropriate for every brand, but can work very well if you like to seem approachable and human.
Get Cover
If scheduled posts alone are not enough of a solution because you want to have other activities going on that you normally do, like replying to blog comments or managing your Twitter account and Facebook page, then you have two real choices. You can either log in remotely and do this on holiday, which is possible in most cases (unless you are planning to spend your holiday at the top of Mount Kilimanjaro), or you can get someone else to cover you.
Logging in while you are on vacation may be the preferable option if you feel weird if you don’t know what is going on with your blog at any given moment, but if you want a truly relaxing holiday or are planning to spend it doing activities that will keep you away from the internet, then find someone to manage things for the duration of your holiday and give them all of the access they need to your social media accounts and blog to get this done. You can hire someone to do this, or strike up a deal with a blogger friend in your network that you will cover each other during your summer holidays, for different weeks.
Having a holiday and keeping service as usual on your blog is not too difficult, but does take some planning and preparation. If you need some great content published while you are away, get in touch with us now and we can make it happen for you!